The subject application is directed generally to controlled resetting of computer systems, and is particularly applicable to controlled resets of systems wherein the dominant user interface is accomplished via touch screens. It is to be appreciated, however, that the subject application is applicable to any computer system in which selected, controlled shutdown or restart is advantageously accomplished with a portable device.
Many data processing devices employ touch screens as a dominant user interface. Applications include public or shared devices, as with walk-up or drive up terminals, such as kiosks. Such devices are typically made to be inexpensive, easy to use, and reasonably secure from tampering or unintended uses. Systems will therefore frequently employ a computer system, and a touch screen interface, thus eliminating a necessity of having a separate key-based data input mechanism.
Unfortunately, any computer device may be subject to one or more failure modes, attributed to software problems, hardware problems, data errors, or any combination thereof. Most private computer systems, such as workstations or personal computers, employ a cycling system that initiates a graceful shut down, which may be followed by a system restart. Such cycling is often accomplished with a keystroke combination, such as the ubiquitous control-alt-delete combination employed in many Microsoft software products. Such key combinations may either immediately initiate a system cycling, or may alternatively initiate a supervisory application that allows for selected cycling of a system or termination of an errant application.
Systems, such as the afore-noted kiosks, often avoid key-based input, thus precluding options for addressing failures such as the types noted above. A system lockup will frequently result in a disabling of a touch screen interface. While it may be possible to transport a keyboard and connect it to a computer to address a problem, this is a cumbersome and time consuming process. This is particularly problematic when many devices must be maintained simultaneously, such as in a document processing facility employing printing, facsimile, electronic mail, copying, or other document processing operations via a group of publicly accessible kiosks. It may be possible to force a hardware reset or physically remove and reapply power to a system, but such extreme tactics may result in lost data that existed in volatile memory during the reset, or may also result in corruption of software